Pretty please (with sugar on top)

April 11th, 2008 by admin

Whipped cream works wonders with our cats, by the way.

Dear Word Detective: You know how hard it is to get a cat to do anything it doesn’t want to. So this morning I asked my cat to get off my robe and I actually said “pretty please,” and then, just to increase my humiliation, added “with tuna on top” (hey — she’s a cat). Where the heck did the phrase “pretty please” come from, and when and why did we feel the need to start adding sugar on top? — Jackie.

Ah, cats. Lovely pets, I hear. Someday I hope to have one or two. Oh those? Those aren’t cats. Those are demons from another dimension sent to rob me of my sanity by destroying the furniture and smashing every bit of crockery in the house, and then lying peacefully amidst the wreckage as if to say, “Don’t look at us, we’re just little cats, it must have been that idiot dog again.” It’s all a lie, of course. I once watched an eight-week old kitten throw a ten-pound dictionary across the room.

“Pretty please” is a phrase used, as the Oxford English Dictionary notes,”in emphatically polite or imploring request[s].” “Pretty please with sugar on top” is Extra Strength Pretty Please, deployed by children and desperate adults in an appeal for cooperation when all other entreaties have failed.

Plain old “please” used in requests (“Please send money”) is an adverb, based on the verb “to please” meaning “to be agreeable or pleasant,” derived from the Latin “placere” (“to be pleasant”). The “request” use of “please” probably originated as a shortened form of the phrase “if it pleases you [to do whatever].”

“Pretty” primarily means, of course, “attractive,” and is rooted in the Old English “praettig,” which meant “clever.” In the 16th century, “pretty” came into use as an adverb meaning “to a considerable extent” (“Bob’s pretty sick”) or, as an adjective, “substantial” (“That boat must have cost a pretty penny”). In the phrase “pretty please,” “pretty” functions as an intensifier, ratcheting up the strength of the “please” to signify that the speaker really, really wants whatever it is they’re asking for. “With sugar on top” turns the urgency dial up to eleven.

The earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary for “pretty please” is from 1913, and the earliest for “pretty please with sugar on top” is from 1973. But my guess is that “with sugar on top” actually arose much earlier, at least by the 1950s. While sprinkling sugar on food has a long history, it was in the 1950s when ready-made sugar-coated breakfast cereal became popular, and the phrase may have been spawned then in imitation of advertising (“Ask Mom for Choco-Balls — the ones with with sugar on top!”) for such wholesome fare.

“Pretty please with sugar on top” was always a bit excessive coming from a child, and on the lips of an adult is often meant as sarcasm, as in Quentin Tarantino’s film Pulp Fiction, where a character says, “I need you guys to act fast if you want to get out of this. So pretty please, with sugar on top, clean the [bleeping] car.”

12 comments on this post.

Jacki:

April 13th, 2008 at 9:36 am

It must have been earlier than the 1950s. It was popular in our household in the late 1940s. In fact I remember building entire sundaes and banana splits while pleading for a pony. At the age of 4, 5, and 6, I had a great deal of difficulty comprehending the word “no”.

Kathy:

August 7th, 2009 at 6:34 pm

I was trying to figure this out myself. I think its an english phrase with german roots.

“bitte schoen” means “beautiful (pretty) please”

Roberta:

December 26th, 2009 at 4:57 am

Kathy, “bitte schoen” in German means “You’re welcome” or “There you go” (as “Voila” in French),
and isn’t used to ask for something.

Good try, though.

Ruth:

April 30th, 2010 at 1:35 pm

“Bitte” can be used for “please” as well as for “thank you.”

If a German speaker were conversing in English and did not understand, he might request “Bitte, auf Deutsch.” which would mean “Please, (say it) in German.”

Draxonfly:

December 5th, 2010 at 9:27 pm

Don’t forget the cherry.. when I was young it was “pretty please with sugar on top and a cherry” ..

Robyn:

January 7th, 2011 at 7:43 am

FYI- Once I saw this, and saw how rude Roberta was I decided to contact a friend of mine that came to Canada where I live as an exchange student from Germany and has spoke the language, and lived(s) there is whole life.

Here is his response quoted. Bear in mind his English isn’t the best.

“hey… “bitte schoen” means “you are welcome” and “pretty please” is actually almost the same, if u translate it word by word… what for do u use it??? to strengthen a request??? i’m not sure if there is a way to translate it for this way… since we only say “bitte” (please) or double it “bitte, bitte”…”

steve:

March 31st, 2011 at 8:30 am

The phrase dates back to at least 1948 as it appears on P.55 of the play by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse, “Life With Mother”, which opened on Broadway on October 20, 1948.

Yvonne:

July 14th, 2011 at 6:37 pm

Thanks all. We remembered something about sugar and a cherry but couldn’t remember exactly.